Corps Yanks Documents Off the Web
They include information about unexploded weapons on former bases in
Butner and around the country
B Y J O N E L L I S T O N
A new era of security has brought with it a new era of secrecy, and as a
result, it's time to add one more case of disappearing data to the
post-Sept. 11 public information casualty list. Citing national security
concerns, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has unceremoniously purged an
online database of documents on former defense sites.
The database, the Project Information Retrieval System, had won praise
for making thousands of reports detailing hazardous sites and cleanup
activities readily available to the public. For those living on and near
former defense sites, it provided crucial information with the
proverbial click of a mouse. Two weeks ago, for example, The Independent
published an exposť about unexploded weapons in and around the former
Camp Butner, a World War II training base north of Durham. The Army left
thousands of acres littered with bombs, and now houses are springing up
on top of them--to the shock of homebuyers. Many of the documents cited
in the article, including detailed site and historical reports, were
obtained from the online database.
...
for the entire story,
see http://indyweek.com/durham/2003-03-12/triangles.html
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